Peter Judmaier

Multi-touch Rocks: Playing with Tangible Virtual Heritage in the Museum -- First User Tests

More than 50.000 petroglyphs are engraved in rock panels on the flanks of the UNESCO world heritage site Val Camonica (Northern Italy). The engravings are not always visible and are often on steep slopes on which it is forbidden to walk for conservation reasons. To overcome these problems, and to be able to transfer the rock art experience to other places, we designed a collaborative computer game for a multi-touch tabletop display. The game contains the image of a full rock panel and several mini games to be played on the panel. This short paper describes the game design as well as the interface and interaction design. We focus on the evaluation of the user interface as an important step in the user centered design approach. Consequently, we perform first user tests on the game in order to evaluate effectivity and efficiency of the user interface. The tests achieve largely good results.

Design and Evaluation of a Second Screen Communication and Gaming Platform to Foster Teleparticipation of the Socially Isolated Elderly

Research studies show that life events such as the transition between working life and retirement, the loss of a life partner, as well as sudden changes in living arrangements potentially increase the risk of social isolation among elderly people. While ICT has had a huge impact on everyday communication and social participation, online services still remain inaccessible to the older generation mostly due to technical barriers resulting from little experience in the use of communication technology. This paper discusses the process behind designing, developing, and testing of a second screen communication and gaming platform in order to foster teleparticipation of the socially isolated elderly. The platform supports intuitive gameplay and live videoconferencing through a prototype of the turn-based card game Schnapsen, which is very popular in German-speaking countries. The technical equipment required for home installation is inexpensive, functions mainly on ICT already available in households, and is easily adaptable to future content. User tests showed that even first-time tablet users could quickly understand the playful interaction concept and soon started to engage in real-time video conversation.

ViennAR: User-Centered-Design of a Bring Your Own Device Mobile Application with Augmented Reality

In many museums it is still common that visitors have to read static texts from boards to gain information about the exhibits. In times where almost every visitor carries a smartphone in their pocket, these devices could be utilized for a more personalized and interactive visitor experience. In this paper we present a design study for a “Bring your own device” setting that combines augmented reality (AR) and navigation in museums. We applied an iterative user centered design approach that included conceptual design, prototyping, user tests, as well as a field test in a large museum in Vienna. One of the main results is that a new and digital form of navigation isn’t as essential as the museum thought it would be. Apart from that the application was well received during the field test.